January 2004

It was on a typically cold, damp and blustery Saturday morning in late January that Anne Gough and I headed for Leighton Park School, Reading. A Choral Workshop Day, organised by Making Music South - a regional subcommittee of the National Federation of Music Societies (NFMS) - promised a welcome diversion from the bleak mid-winter; and so it proved.

Born into a Leicestershire family of tower and handbell ringers, Andrew Carter gained a music degree at Leeds University, joined the Choir of York Minster as a bass songman and later founded the Chapter House Choir there. His compositions for both choir and organ have been published widely over a period of thirty years and are very well-regarded.

Andrew's enthusiasm, energy, and joy in music-making infected those present. As did his humour: "Altos, you are the most important section of the choir ... after the tenors!" and, given our rendering of Bach's Cantata No. 4 (Christ lag in Todesbanden - Christ lay in death's grim prison), "I must compliment you on your sight-reading; your German is lousy, but then so is mine!" Despite all that, a most rewarding day.

Nigel Wallington

February 2004

After a stunning concert in March 2003, we eagerly anticipated the return visit of LYRA - a vocal quartet from St. Petersburg - to All Saints' Church, Rotherfield Peppard, on Friday 27th February. Could they possibly maintain the very high standard set the year before?

Yes, without a doubt! Svetlana Burovik (soprano) and Olga Gousseva (alto), both members of the 2003 tour, were joined, this year, by Evgeni Vichnevski (tenor) and Pavel Yankovski (baritone) and they demonstrated, together and separately, their love and mastery of music. Each gave a solo (and, in turn, accompanied at the piano), which made the church ring with the richness of one single voice. Pavel's Some enchanted evening (South Pacific), in Russian, was a highlight of their secular repertoire.

But it is in the realm of the Russian Orthodox Church and native folk songs that LYRA excel. En ensemble they blend so well and, with such a fine sense of dynamics, defy the usual rule: that you can't make a choir out of soloists. You can and they do!

Nigel Wallington

[The above review was submitted to the Henley Standard and the Reading Chronicle and was printed in the former's March 5th edition under the headline "It is possible to make a choir out of soloists" - NW]

March 2004

THE HEXAGON was full on the evening of 30th March. An audience of well over a thousand is quite an awesome sight - especially from the stage! There I was, seated at the Steinway grand, blinking into the limelight and steeling myself to accompany 400 children from 26 primary schools for their 59th Music Festival. Our conductor, Clive Waterman, and my fellow musicians, Derek Dunn (bass) and Tim Munday (percussion), were calm and collected; but then they had all been there before. I hadn't!

The Right to Survive was a concert of song, drama, dance, mime and narration, emphasising the need to care for our environment and its wildlife. It was apparent from the very first rehearsal that such a theme appealed to the youngsters and their sheer enthusiasm and joy in music-making infected us all. The skill and dedication of their teachers also needs to be recognised and I sincerely hope that this firm foundation will be built upon as the children progress through their education.

On the morning of the concert, we ran through the full programme in the Hexagon and were aware of just how much goes into such an event. Stage, lighting and sound technicians, even the piano tuner, were all on hand, leaving nothing to chance. It's their job, of course, as it was mine to play the piano. The real stars were the children and I do hope that they remember their special day. I certainly shall.

Nigel Wallington

[There was a most complimentary article in the Reading Chronicle on Thursday 8th April 2004, which I've put up on the Parish Room notice board to the west of the kitchen - NW]

April 2004

On Palm Sunday evening, 4th April, at 6.30 p.m., the usual service of Evening Prayer will be replaced by a devotional service of music and readings for Passiontide, entitled Behold your King. The Choir of All Saints' Church will sing seasonal carols and anthems and the congregation will join in the singing of the psalm and several well-known hymns.

Music at the Sung Eucharist on Easter Day, 11th April, will include Frederick Wadely's setting of the Communion Service and Sir Henry Walford Davies's anthem O sons and daughters. The evening canticles will be sung to Tertius Noble's setting in B minor.

The "annual" Royal School of Church Music Three Day Course for Choristers will take place at Magdalen College School, Oxford on Tuesday 13th, Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th April. The course will be directed by Robert Webb and each day at 4.15 p.m. the children on the course will sing a service in the beautiful Chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford. Everyone is welcome to attend these services. All Saints' Choir will be represented on the course by Jamie and Sophia Bell, Felicity Cunningham, Melissa de Haan, Megan Hill and Caroline Southern.

[The word "annual" has been put into inverted commas because the future of this long-established and successful course has been thrown into doubt by the decision to adopt a new pattern of school terms in Oxfordshire. These terms will not observe the traditional Easter school holiday. Buckinghamshire and the unitary authorities which make up the former Berkshire area have not changed their term pattern. All of these authorities cover the the Diocese of Oxford from which children come who attend the RSCM course. However, the date of Easter 2005 is such that a common holiday period exists in all the authorities and this will allow the course to be held next year.]

Postscript: Congratulations to Sophia and Jamie Bell on being selected to sing at the 6.00 p.m. Choral Evensong in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford on the following Saturday, 17th April.

May 2004

This year, May includes both Rogation Sunday (16th) and Whitsunday (30th), two days which we like to observe fully at All Saints' Church. On Rogation Sunday, Evening Prayer will include the Litany, sung to Tallis's setting, and the anthem The Lord is my shepherd (S. S. Wesley). Whitsunday coincides with the Spring Bank Holiday this year. (Older readers will remember when Whitsun was always a Bank Holiday!) The congregations of St. John's and Christ the King will join us for the Sung Eucharist. At Choral Evensong, the canticles will be sung to Morley's fauxbourdon setting and the anthem will be the popular Come, Holy Ghost by Attwood.

Congratulations to Sophia Bell who has passed the Bishop of Oxford's Junior Chorister examination, now also known nationally as the RSCM Bronze Award. Sophia gained a merit grade in the examination of the Thames and Chilterns Area which was held at Bearwood College on 1st May. She will formally receive her award during Choral Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford on Saturday 6th November.

Sarah Woodward, now coming to the end of her first undergraduate year at Durham, will be singing with the Chapel Choir of the College of St. Hild and St. Bede (where she is a choral scholar) on its South of England tour. The choir will sing at St. Albans on Monday 7th June, at Hatfield on Tuesday 8th June and at St. George's Chapel, Windsor on Wednesday 9th June. Information on times of services may be obtained from Margaret Woodward (0118 972 2296).

We have been delighted to learn that Victoria (Scott) Villars is engaged to be married. Her wedding will take place in the Chapel of Radley College on 19th February 2005. She will carry with her the best wishes of all those who remember her years in the Choir of All Saints' Church.

David Atkinson, sometime treble, alto, tenor and occasional organist, is the author of Weathering, slopes and landforms, due for publication by Hodder and Stoughton, London next month. David is head of geography at Dr. Challoner's GS, Amersham where he will become head of careers in September.

June 2004

Monday, 7th June was a beautiful Spring day. Three of us were among the congregation of about 30 who attended Evensong at the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban. The day, the setting and the service were in perfect accord.

The music of the service was sung by the Chapel Choir of St. Hild and St. Bede, University of Durham during the choir's tour of the Home Counties. Our own Sarah Woodward sang on the Decani side of the sopranos. The choir numbered 26 bright, young voices who did themselves and their college proud. The service music included:

August 2004

No, this is not a shaggy dog story! I have been lucky (and privileged) to sing services in three cathedrals within a month. I suddenly realised that they are in Ireland, Wales and England. What a shame that Scotland missed out, though we did go to Scotland, and the fantastic Outer Hebrides, for our holiday.

The first cathedral on the list was Portsmouth, where the Reading Minster Midweek Choir (RMMWC) sang BCP Evensong on 21st July. The City of Portsmouth is such an interesting place and I do enjoy going there. The cathedral , in Old Portsmouth, is uniquely different but distinctly attractive and the staff, both clergy and lay, are among the friendliest and most helpful. The visit was so successful that the choir will sing there again next July.

Two and a half weeks later, and RMMWC headed west to sing the services at Llandaff for the weekend of 7th and 8th August. Llandaff is famous for the Epstein Majestas. As a work of art, it is not everyone's cup of tea, though I find it a significant and worthy addition to the cathedral. Unfortunately, it and the arch which supports it make a nonsense of the cathedral acoustic. We sang Evensong on Saturday and Sunday and the Eucharist on Sunday, all according the Book of Common Prayer for use in the Church in Wales. The Sung Eucharist was a very well attended and dignified service. It included a sermon from the Dean. There were about 120 communicants. The service lasted 50 minutes. The Prayer of Humble Access was omitted and there was no "meeting and greeting" at the Peace.

I write these lines on return from St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin where Schola Cantorum Sancti Aegidii (based at St. Giles-in-Reading) sang the services for six days beginning on 16th August. St. Patrick's is the national cathedral of Ireland though, with an Irish quirk, no bishop has his cathedra in St. Patrick's Cathedral! If you stand outside the west door of St. Patrick's Cathedral and look north, you can see Christ Church Cathedral, a five minute walk away. Christ Church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough and it is where the Archbishop of Dublin has his seat. However, St. Patrick's is the largest cathedral in Ireland and it has the largest organ in Ireland. Nigel Wallington played it for Evensong on 16th and 18th August [1] and, at the latter service, the choir sang "our" anthem, "There is a land of pure delight" (Grayston Ives). We were pleased to learn that the anthem is already on the music list of the girls' choir at St. Patrick's (which all goes to show how far-sighted our PCC was when it commissioned the anthem in 1999). The daily services are sung according the Church of Ireland BCP, which seems to differ from our 1662 BCP only in praying for "our rulers" instead of The Queen. Unlike Wales, where the Holy Spirit reigns supreme, Holy Ghosts are still in vogue at St. Patrick's. The senior cleric is the Dean in Ordinary who is answerable to no one! The present incumbent is a former Vicar of Bracknell. The choir school was founded in 1432 and the boys sing matins each week day in term time at 9.50 am. The St. Patrick's Cathedral website claims that this provision in now unique in cathedrals "in these islands". Long may it, and the cathedral's other unique characteristics, remain to the greater glory of God.

K. B. Atkinson

[1] I was also privileged to conduct the choir on 17th August when Ian May, its Director, took a turn at the organ console - NW

October 2004

As we enter the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness", there comes, with a certain inevitability, one of the high points of the year: the Annual Choirs' Festival of the Royal School of Church Music on the second Saturday of October. This year, the Festival will be held in the Chapel of Radley College, near Abingdon, on Saturday 9th October.

The choirs will be directed by Roger Sayer, Organist and Director of Music at Rochester Cathedral. (Some of us have sung with Roger at Rochester, so we know that he is an inspiring conductor with a fine sense of humour!) They will be accompanied by Elizabeth Burgess, Senior Organ Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. Elizabeth has just spent a month of her summer vacation playing at the other Christchurch in New Zealand. The service will be read by the Revd. Canon Anthony Stidolph, Chaplain of Radley College, and the preacher will be the Revd. Canon Lucy Winkett, Precentor of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Grayston Ives (Organist and Informator Choristarum, Magdalen College, Oxford) led an RSCM Workshop at Magdalen College School on Saturday 16th October 2004, the most recent in a successful series of similar events. 80 singers concentrated on three modern settings of the Holy Communion service, by Louis Halsey, Philip Ledger and Grayston Ives himself. Each setting allows for congregation and choir participation using Common Worship texts. Four Communion motets from The New Oxford Easy Anthem Book (2002) were also explored. Two were settings of Ave verum corpus, by Pearsall and Saint-Saens, in addition to Lord, I trust thee (Handel) and O salutaris Hostia No. 3 (Elgar). All four should be well within the capabilities of a parish church choir.

Two hours of concentrated effort were brought to a fitting conclusion in a short service, conducted by the Revd. Canon Timothy Wimbush, in which elements of the Ives and Ledger settings were sung, together with the Handel anthem.

Some participants were able later to attend a short organ recital followed by Evensong in Magdalen College Chapel. With Mr. Ives's hints on breathing and phrasing fresh in our minds, it was easy to see how the College Chapel Choir puts these matters into sublime practice when leading worship day by day.

November 2004

A good-sized congregation gathered for Evensong at the cathedral on Saturday 6th November. Following the First Lesson, 25 choristers from the Diocese of Oxford were presented with RSCM Bronze or Silver Awards by the Bishop of Buckingham, the Right Reverend Alan Wilson. Among the choristers to receive certificates from the Bishop was our own Sophia Bell.

After the Third Collect, the choristers sang the anthem, O pray for the peace of Jerusalem, by John Blow. The cathedral choir sang the other service music which included the Responses (John Reading), Psalm 32, and the Evening Canticles (Daniel Purcell in E minor). The congregation joined in the opening and closing hymns, Almighty Father, who for us thy Son didst give (Annue Christe) and Now thank we all our God (NunDanket).

The programme presented by the choral group Cantus to a large and appreciative audience at All Saints' Church, Peppard on 20th November in aid of FareShare had the variety of a chocolate box. Whether the centres were chewy, delicately creamy or nutty, there was something for everyone to dip into.

The choir focused on English composers, sounding particularly well in the 20th century repertoire. There was a freshness and vigour in Britten's Flower Songs, and the attention to line and detail paid off on Harris' wonderful setting of Faire is the Heaven. The controlled tone colouring in Vaughan Williams' Shakespeare songs brought forth stunning bell effects, lush soft chording and light nimbleness in turn.

Organist Ian Dalgleish, who accompanied the choir in Stanford's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in C, put the church's organ through its paces with two Chorale preludes by Bach and Lefebure-Wely's fairground-style Sortie in E flat. Other solo items, which were sensitively accompanied variously by Clare Woodham and Louise Rappell, included an extract from Elijah and some Schubert wonderfully sung by bass David Bonar (worth the detour). There was also a moving account of Lloyd Webbers' With One Look by soprano Abi Charters and a duet from the Magic Flute, sung with charm by soprano Sophie Vyse and tenor Simon Wellings.

The bonbons unwrapped by the choir to round off the evening may have been in less serious vein, but were nonetheless neatly executed. Plaudits must go to conductors David Bonar and Philip White for moulding the assortment with panache. Cantus have entertained audiences at All Saints' for several years now in celebration of St. Cecilia's day, and we look forward to them bringing us more delights in the future.

JMB

Postscript The retiring collection raised £486 for Cantus's chosen charity - FareShare.

December 2004

Following an extremely succesful evening in December 2003, The Unicorn will again host carol singing on Wednesday 22nd December (7.30 p.m. for 8.00 p.m.). Members and friends of the Choir of All Saints' Church will help to lead the singing.

As usual, there will be two carol services at All Saints' Church this Christmas. On Christmas Day a Service of Seven Lessons and Carols will be held at 11 a.m. During the service, the Choir will sing Torches (Joubert), So gentle the donkey (Barnard), Wither's Rocking Hymn (Vaughan Williams) and Make we joy (Spedding).

On St. Stephen's Day, Sunday 26th December, the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols will begin at 10.30 a.m. The introit, Break forth, O beauteous, heavenly light (Bach) will be followed by choir carols which will include People, look East (arr. Martin Shaw), A Christmas song (Rathbone), I sing of a maiden (Berkeley), The little road to Bethlehem (Head) and Personent hodie (arr. Holst).

There will be many opportunities for congregational singing of favourite Christmas carols during both services.

January 2005

Since the millennium, it has become the custom at the turn of the year for singers from All Saints' and St. Nicholas, Greys, to join together for choral evensong at Peppard. Nowadays, singers from St. John's, Kidmore End and Christ the King, Sonning Common also participate. The singers rehearse from 4.30 p.m., break for coffee and mince pies and then sing the service.

Please come along at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday, 2nd January 2005 and support your choirs who put so much work into church services throughout the year, and especially over the Christmas period. The music will include:

It seems that the anthem which the Parochial Church Council commissioned from Grayston Ives in 2000 is set to become an even firmer favourite. Already recorded by the RSCM Millennium Youth Choir on the Lammas label, published in print by RSCM and their best selling single anthem of 2003, it is now to appear on the Harmonia Mundi label as track 1 of a CD of compositions by Grayston Ives, recorded in March 2004 by the Chapel Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Some of us have been extolling the qualities of Magdalen Choir in recent years. It seems that we are not alone as the choir's recording of music by Orlando Gibbons: With a Merrie Noyse (Harmonia Mundi), has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category. The awards will be made in Los Angeles on 13th February.